


Queen to King's Rook

by liesmyth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, F/M, King Ned Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:00:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26179873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/pseuds/liesmyth
Summary: Ned marries Cersei Lannister in Baelor’s Grand Sept, under the watchful eyes of the court and of his bride’s southron gods.
Relationships: Cersei Lannister/Ned Stark
Comments: 32
Kudos: 278
Collections: Alternate Universe Exchange 2020





	Queen to King's Rook

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lastwingedthing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastwingedthing/gifts).



Ned marries Cersei Lannister in Baelor’s Grand Sept, under the watchful eyes of the court and of his bride’s southron gods. Later, after the banquet, they are married again in the gardens of the Red Keep by the heart tree, just the two of them and her brother, sour-faced and clad in Kingsguard white.

Later still, after the bedding – after he saw her flushed and naked under him, her golden hair mussed, her beautiful face somewhat unimpressed – she asks something of him.

Ned hasn’t been King for very long. He doesn’t feel very assured in his newfound power, even after a year as the Lord of Winterfell. Besides, he's heard enough of Old Nan’s popular wisdom to know he ought to heed his wife’s desires for the sake of marital harmony. But even beyond that, he does want to make her happy.

The next morning, he formally releases Jaime Lannister from his Kingsguard vows. Tywin’s heir is returned to him, and Ned watches Jaime’s arrogant smile and thinks idly about punching him in the face. He doesn’t. It would not be kingly, and there’s something else stopping him, something deeper than the vague desire to keep his new wife happy. Jaime was there when Father died, when Brandon took his last breaths trying to save him. He wishes… perhaps, in time, there might come a day when he will be able to ask Jaime about it.

For now, he sits on the Iron Throne in the cavernous room where it all happened and watches Cersei’s eyes lit up with pure unbridled joy. She’d been ecstatic when he promised he’d do it, the happiest he’d ever seen her in the brief time they’ve had together. Ecstatic, and grateful – his face heats up when he thinks of the way she looked at him that morning, and then she went to her knees and took him into her mouth. He’d never done that before, and told her as much. It's not very kingly to blush and stammer after bedding one's own wife, either, but earlier he did just that and now he feels overheated and awkward just thinking about it.

“I didn’t… you don’t have to, you didn’t have to thank me,” he tried to say, not very eloquently at all. “I just wanted – I hoped to make you happy,” he said, and she frowned slightly. “I wanted to.”

The curious look hadn’t left her eyes since the morning. She has it still, glancing at him from under her lashes like she doesn’t quite know what to expect, or as if he were a very clever dog that just performed an inventive trick. He watches as Jaime Lannister grasps her hands and whispers something that makes her smile, a wisp of hair falling from its net as her head tilts. But she still looks pensive.

That evening he doesn’t visit her chambers again. He wants to talk to her and dinner had been too loud, but her rooms intimidate him somewhat, so large and richly adorned and empty but for the two of them.

He waits until the next morning instead, when he asks Ser Barristan to tell Her Grace that her husband would like to walk with her in the gardens. He expects Cersei to wake up late in the morning, as he knows ladies are wont to do in the South, and so he’s taken by surprise when her messenger reaches him as he’s sparring in the yard, informing him that the Queen has risen and is waiting for him in the rose garden. His hair is matted with sweat and he’s wearing a plain unadorned blouse under his leather paddings; he weighs keeping her waiting versus making a good impression but – if they are to be married, and they _are_ married and will remain so – well. He’s no fancy southron king and she knew this when her father made sure she became his bride.

He meets her as he is, shirt stained with dark sweat under his armpits and limping slightly from where Ser Aron hit him in the thigh and Cersei stares him up and down like, once again, he isn’t quite what she'd been expecting.

Then she says, “I heard Lady Lyanna liked swords.”

“Aye.” It’s his turn to be surprised. What does she mean? Does she know about the manner of Lyanna’s death, about the boy he sent north and Benjen claimed as his own? Is she even more of a lion than he suspected her to be, her father’s agent in all things? But she seems to just be making conversation, so he answers in kind.

“She did.” He speaks slowly, not knowing what to expect. “She would have carried one had our lord father allowed it. She had her own wooden sword – she thought it was a big secret, but we all knew about it.” Lya had been a fearless child, and his heart clenches up as he pictures her in his mind’s eye, red-faced and triumphant, a lifetime ago. “I always suspected she snuck out and practised with the stable boys when Old Nan wasn’t looking.”

His wife, to her credit, doesn't look shocked. “You don’t seem angry about that.”

Ned doesn’t know what she’s looking for. He isn’t made for any of this – seeing deceit in every corner, weighing his words like he will be judged on them. “It wasn’t proper,” he says slowly. “I always thought it was odd. But it made her happy. I couldn't be angry about something that made her laugh like that.”

The Kingsguards are standing a respectful five steps behind. He will have to find someone else to fill Jamie's spot, he thinks, and so soon after he replaced so many of Rhaegar’s faithfuls. He looks down to his booted feet and finds no answer. The wind rustles through the bushes, a gentle southron breeze. There is a polite, inquisitive silence.

“My lady?” Ned asks. “Is anything amiss?”

He turns just in time to see her draw in a visible breath.

“When I was a child, I used to dress up in my brother’s clothes.”

That startles him. Whatever Ned had been expecting, it hadn’t been this. Not from Cersei, with her elegant gowns and jewelled hairnet.

“When we were children no one could tell us apart. So I thought… sometimes, I went into the yard and picked up my brother’s sword.” She gives him another of those long looks and he recognises it for what it is. A challenge. 

“Does this upset you, my lord?”

“I'm surprised,” he says, honestly. “It’s not something it’d have expected from you.”

“Because I’m Lord Tywin’s daughter?”

“Because you’re – well.” The greatest beauty in the Seven Kingdoms, the bards call her, poised and sharp. Elegant like a Dornish blade. “You don’t exactly resemble my sister,” he says, weakly. He glances at her gown, golden like the thread on the Lannister banners, her bodice embroidered in dark green. “So tell me, my lady. Do you like swords as well?”

“Not at all,” she says immediately. “I don’t like hitting people with sticks.” Her lip curls. “And my skin would show all of the bruises. I only liked doing it because I kept being told I wasn’t supposed to do it.”

He finds it surprisingly easy to believe that. He tries to picture the Cersei Lannister in front of him as a rule-breaking child, still so much different from Lyanna, but perhaps not in the ways that mattered.

“So, I take it you’re not about to ask me to let you practice swordplay in the training yard of the Keep?”

It’s a joke – Ned has often been told that he’s too serious, and he’s not expecting her to smile at his words, but she does and something in his chest feels warmth at that. A peace offering, accepted.

“Maybe next month,” she says lightly. “Maybe I’m saving my requests.”

He has a fleeting thought of yesterday morning, and what she did to him in her bedchamber – he does not blush, but it’s a close thing.

“My lady,” he chances. “Would you – would you like to show me Casterly Rock?”

For the first time, she’s truly taken aback. “What?”

“Your brother will be returning home soon. Lord Tywin will insist on it.” He can see in her eyes that he’s right, and she doesn’t like the idea. Maybe she resents leaving her brother, maybe she misses her home as much as Ned does. He thinks – he would like to know where she came from. He would like to learn more about what Cersei had been like as a child.

“When Ser Jaime leaves for the Rock, we could go with him. Or we could visit in a few moon’s turns.” There will be time to talk, on the road, to share more stories. “I heard so much about the west, but I’ve never visited.” Most of what he’s seen of the South, besides the Vale, has been at the head of an army. “A King should know his country,” he says. “All of it. Will you show me?”

He says it earnestly. She looks him up and down like she did earlier, nodding – not to him but to herself, as if she’s just figured out a puzzle piece she didn’t know where to place. Or a pawn on the board.

“I see my father misjudged you,” she says. “Yes, I will. I think you might even enjoy yourself.” And then she smiles at him, a true smile. “You could certainly use it.”

And so it begins.


End file.
